THE TRIBUNE'S VIEW

HENRY J. WATERS III

Wednesday

Jul 30, 2008 at 12:01 AM

Sid Sullivan challenges longtime incumbent Karen Miller for the so-called Southern District seat on the Boone County Commission. His campaign is a valuable happening for the welfare of the local populace.

An active election campaign gives the best chance in a democracy for second-guessing incumbent governance. I think Karen Miller is doing a good job and actually has gotten better in recent years, but no such opinion can be gained as surely without the evaluation that only an active election challenge can bring.

Sullivan focuses on planning, as do most challengers for local policymaking offices. A call for more is never frivolous, but usually outsiders expect more from long-range planning than it can deliver. What these agitations do accomplish is steady pressure on city and county planning and development agencies to do all they can better.

The new high school site planned off St. Charles Road in northeast Columbia is a good example showing why detailed long-range plans are impossible. Nobody could have predicted the chosen site, making calls for precise future pinpointing of such developments impossible. Local planning agencies are bound to react to such events. Their challenge is to do it as well as possible, which is happening in this case. The new high school area gives an excellent opportunity for city and county planners to work together.

Another example is the disputed Crosscreek development at Stadium Boulevard and Highway 63 South. Everyone knew the spot was sure to be developed one day, but nobody could predict when or how. In this example we learned we might need more rules about land clearance before development planning, but would there have been a sensible context for passing those rules several years ago? How could neighbors and city officials react without context? To accomplish the wonders most long-range planners dream about would take Merlin, not a new Southern District commissioner or a "smart growth" city council member.

But none of this debases the value Sullivan brings to the discussion. He has interesting but unworkable ideas about how to rejigger rural zoning to break up what he regards as an oversized sea of A2 zoning requiring minimum lot sizes of 2½ acres for subdividing. He envisions a rezoning allowing developers of large tracts to build concentrations of smaller lots surrounded by required areas of green space. He imagines developers actually could be allowed to build in more concentration while still preserving a rural atmosphere. Something like that.

As Miller accurately points out, this is not a feasible plan. It would involve down-zoning, a nearly impossible feat for any land use planning agency, reducing property value. Sullivan's plan poses troublesome implications for wastewater treatment and road construction.

Miller says if people want to live in concentrated subdivisions, they should live in the city. In her typically pointed way, she makes a valid point, implying the best way for urbanization to spread is through city annexations. Meanwhile, city and county subdivision rules blessedly are nearly identical, eliminating the once present incentive for developers to leapfrog subdivision construction into the county with disastrous results, as we have seen clearly in El Chaparral east of town.

Sullivan criticizes Miller's time spent on state and national county government associations. Miller actually served as president of the National Association of Counties. She says the contacts she has made pay dividends for Boone County because any time we face a new and difficult problem, she knows people around the country who have faced similar challenges. She can pick up the phone and talk it over.

If this really has value for Boone County, Sullivan might reasonably say "prove it," but most constituents probably agree it's a good thing for a local officeholder to rise so far among nationwide peers.

Karen Miller does not neglect her local duties. She has steadily improved as a county official. She knows the ropes and deserves election for another term as Southern District commissioner.

Henry J. Waters III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune

Tomorrow: To tase or not to tase?

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